World Book Day: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

I am completely and utterly biased here because my favorite author writes suspense/thriller novels and I love her work too much to recommend anyone beyond here – yes, I love them that much.

Sandra Brown was originally known for her romance novels dating back to the early 1980s. Throughout the first decade of her career she wrote under the pen names of Rachel Ryan, Laura Jordan, and Erin St. Clare – but entered the 1990s very much herself. It wasn’t until she began writing under her own name that she began to shift her writing away from romance and onto thrilling and suspenseful.

And what a shift it was.

Of the two, I much prefer the later of her career, but will definitely lend credit where it’s due – Brown is an incredibly talented writer. Period.

As for her thrillers – I own all but one. And that’s only because it’s been alluding me. I’ve tried online and any used bookstore I come across – no such luck so far, but I’m still holding out hope!

When millionaire Paul Wheeler is murdered, his family retains renowned lawyer Derek Mitchell to defend the victim’s nephew Creighton— although the police have not charged the young man with the crime. Wheeler’s mistress, Julie Rutledge, who is also a suspect, believes that Creighton is the killer, despite his rock-solid alibi, and she’ll do almost anything in her quest to prove his guilt—even ruin Derek’s career. But the more Derek learns of Creighton’s darker side, especially his bizarre fascination with movie murders, the more he comes to believe Julie is right. The clock ticks down to a shocking ending as Derek and Julie join forces to find the truth.

When a hardened cop turned Private Investigator gets a call about a woman he hasn’t seen in thirty years, he must race to Texas to stop the stalker terrorizing her.

Colleagues, friends, and lovers know Dodge Hanley as a private investigator who doesn’t let rules get in his way—in his private life as well as his professional one. If he breaks a heart, or bends the law in order to catch a criminal, he does so without hesitation or apology.

That’s why he’s the first person Caroline King—who after a thirty-year separation continues to haunt his dreams—asks for help when a deranged stalker attempts to murder their daughter…the daughter Dodge has never met. He has a whole bagful of grudging excuses for wishing to ignore Caroline’s call, and one compelling reason to drop everything and fly down to Texas: guilt.

Dodge’s mind may be a haze of disturbing memories and bad decisions, but he arrives in Houston knowing with perfect clarity that his daughter, Berry, is in danger. She has become the object of desire of a coworker, a madman, and genius with a penchant for puzzles and games who has spent the past year making Berry’s life hell, and who now has vowed to kill her.

Dodge joins forces with local deputy sheriff Ski Nyland, but the alarming situation goes from bad to worse when the stalker begins to claim other victims and leaves an ominous trail of clues as he lethally works his way toward Berry. Sensing the killer drawing nearer, Dodge, who’s survived vicious criminals and his own self-destructive impulses, realizes that this time he’s in for the fight of his life.

No one knows why Dr. Lara Mallory came back home to Eden Pass, Texas to open up her medical practice after all these years. But everyone remembers her role in the well-publicized scandal that caused the downfall of White House hopeful Senator Clark Tackett. So when the iron-fisted matriarch of Tackett Oil uses every weapon in her arsenal to drive her out of town, Lara refuses to go quietly. Yet in this corruption-riddled town, nothing is as it seems. An explosive secret lurks beneath the surface, threatening Lara at every turn. Her unlikely ally: Key, the hell-raising youngest Tackett son. Thrown together, they’re on a dangerous quest to expose the one secret that can destroy the Tackett empire-and anyone who dares to challenge its power.

Dawson Scott is a well-respected journalist recently returned from Afghanistan. Haunted by everything he experienced, he’s privately suffering from battle fatigue which is a threat to every aspect of his life. But then he gets a call from a source within the FBI. A new development has come to light in a story that began 40 years ago. It could be the BIG story of Dawson’s career one in which he has a vested interest.

Soon, Dawson is covering the disappearance and presumed murder of former Marine Jeremy Wesson, the biological son of the pair of terrorists who remain on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. As Dawson delves into the story, he finds himself developing feelings for Wesson’s ex-wife, Amelia, and her two young sons. But when Amelia’s nanny turns up dead, the case takes a stunning new turn, with Dawson himself becoming a suspect. Haunted by his own demons, Dawson takes up the chase for the notorious outlaws. . .and the secret, startling truth about himself.

Like the city of New Orleans itself, Claire Laurent is a vibrant beauty laced with a mysterious elusiveness. The founder of French Silk, a fabulous lingerie company, she has fought hard to make it a worldwide success. Then a TV evangelist attacks French Silk’s erotic sleepwear as sinful. And when he is killed, Claire becomes the prime suspect.

District Attorney Robert Cassidy knows Claire is damning herself with lie after lie about the murder, even as he feels her drawing him into her world and her very soul. But neither Cassidy nor her protests of innocence can save Claire unless she reveals a shocking truth — one she has sworn to take to the grave…

On a rainy Southern night, Jade Sperry endured a young woman’s worst nightmare at the hands of three local hell-raisers. Robbed of her youthful ideals and at the center of scandal and tragedy, Jade ran as far and as fast as she could. But she never forgot the sleepy “company town” where every man, woman, and child was dependent on one wealthy family. And she never forgot their spoiled son, who, with his two friends, changed her life forever. Someday, somehow, she’d return, exact a just revenge — and free herself from fear, and the powerful family that could destroy her.

Assistant DA Hammond Cross has his sights set on the DA’s office. Prosecuting a high-profile murder case practically ensures him the job. But a Saturday night encounter with a mysterious woman is the start of a living nightmare.

Identical twins Melina and Gillian Lloyd haven’t considered switching places since childhood. So when Melina proposes that Gillian take her place as a media escort to NASA astronaut Col. “Chief” Hart, she refuses…at first. The following morning Melina receives terrible news: her sister has been brutally murdered-and Chief, though innocent, is the prime suspect. He and Melina are determined to find the killer, a megalomaniac whose horrific schemes require Gillian’s replacement, her identical twin-Melina.

Alexandra Gaither is a savvy, beautiful attorney who finally has the power to get what she has always wanted — justice. Twenty-five years before, her mother died a scandalous death. Now as she investigates her mother’s former lover, his best friend, and the father figure to them both, she will risk everything to uncover their best kept secrets.